


The Fair and Feral Heart

by alteringegoism



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Ambiguity, Angst, Love, M/M, Magic, Pining Harry, Sad Niall, Sex, Substance Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-19
Updated: 2014-03-19
Packaged: 2018-01-15 15:52:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1310494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alteringegoism/pseuds/alteringegoism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one else knew it, but Niall was always going to leave. Harry hadn’t known it, but from the moment they met, he’s been trying to make him stay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fair and Feral Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently I love Irish clichés. And words that start with ‘F’. And taking artistic liberties with people’s history.
> 
> My alternate, more flip and less fitting, though no less accurate, summary for this work was: A brief, embellished account of the origins of One Direction and how Larry became Narry if Niall was a fairy.

“Why are you here?”

Harsh, white lights illuminated the slender body standing alone at the centre of the stage.

“I want to sell out arenas, and make an album, and work with some of the best artists in the world.” Naive, impossible ambitions for this slip of a boy with the crooked teeth and too blond hair, but spoken with such brash confidence that he lit up the audition room and drew every eye like moths to his flame.

The four X Factor judges watched him from behind their raised dais, unrelenting stares dissecting his every action and cataloging his numerous flaws. The boy took their criticism and abuse with grace and good humour. His spine remained unbowed. The grin on his face, a little sharp at the corners, dared them to put him through. Blue eyes sparked with promise and something more, something powerful. And they did.

The thrill of the contest, the thrum of all the people, spiced the air with fascinating and intoxicating flavours. The pack of boys especially pulsed with frenetic energy and budding potential, their hopes and dreams clear in their eyes and unclouded by life’s bitterness and sorrows. At least not yet.

It was here that Harry met Niall. He remembered the moment that blue flowed into green, the way the skin on his arms prickled and a metallic scent stung his nose, like rain before it storms. The blond boy’s head tilted, considering and grave in a way that Harry would rarely see again, though he didn’t know it at the time. His heart thumped hard against the walls of his chest. His blood ran hot. Then the stagehands called the hordes of the hopeful forward and the moment evaporated.

Dreams died a quick death upon that stage. They all scattered, those who were not chosen to move on in the competition, to their own separate corners. Completely gutted, Harry avoided looking directly at the camera as he answered their digging queries, youthful voice barely above a whisper. Tears blurring his vision, he looked away and found Niall.

“The worst feeling I ever had in me life. Standing there and waiting for your name to be called and then it’s not.”

The boy, Niall, buried his face in his sweater to hide his blotchiness and gaping wounds from a too new and alien world. Mumbling apologies, he turned his back. His sweater dropped and Harry watched him raise a hand to his face. Fingertips dragged through the trails of water on his cheeks in wonder.

The cameras finally shut off and Harry gave into the urge to drift closer to the blond boy. Soft gray beanie twisting in his hands, misery welled up inside of him, spilling forth from an endless spring. He was drowning in it.

Without hesitation, Harry clutched at the other’s shoulder. A desperate lifeline. “What do we do now?”

Niall looked at him with dry eyes, the redness gone as if it had never been. He eyed Harry with detached curiosity. A pale hand splayed wide against Harry’s shuddering chest, the touch anchoring him there.

“Your heart is breaking.”

Harry felt laid bare under Niall’s gaze in a way that he hadn’t been even on the stage. “This is everything I ever wanted. I’d give anything to stay.”

“That’s a dangerous thing to be saying to an Irishman.”

Harry tried to smile. “I mean it,” he said, softer than the words spoken to the camera.

In the dim light of the backstage, Niall’s pale blue eyes seemed to turn silver. A flash of pointed, imperfect teeth and he slung his arm around Harry’s shoulder and dragged him in. The vulnerable skin of Harry's neck tingled. “Reckon we can both stick around here a wee bit longer. See where we end up.”

At that moment, as if on cue, a summons rippled through the backstage. Confusion and anticipation crackled through Harry. The producers gathered them all together, the rejected boys and girls, in neat little rows of sorrow and disappointment. Harry followed at Niall’s side, staying close enough that bony elbows brushed and jutting hips bumped. He left no space for anyone else to get in between them.

When they called his and Niall’s names along with three others to return to face the judges, it felt like a prayer answered, a bargain struck. This time, Harry led them back to the stage tugging impatiently at Niall’s wrist. They and the other three lads huddled close, some stranger’s hand curled around Harry’s shoulder. Harry trusted his weight only to Niall’s slim frame as they stood there awaiting their future.

The announcement of a group, of staying on in the competition, sent Harry to his knees. In an instant, Niall dropped down beside him and lifted him up to dizzying heights. Happiness sparked through them and set them ablaze. Together, in that moment, Harry felt that they could never burn out.

Harry was still coming down from his high when he flopped down next to Niall on his narrow bed. “Wonder what made them choose us five for the group?”

Niall looked out the window, eyes reflecting the blue, blue sky. He shrugged and allowed a mischievous smile to play about his mouth. “It’s what you wanted, ain't it? And the rest seem like a laugh.”

Harry snuffled into the crook of Niall’s arm. “They’re alright. I’m just glad you’re here with me.”

Niall’s fingers slid into Harry’s dark brown curls, a feather light pressure against his scalp. Harry liked the hesitation in his touch, liked that Niall didn’t know where his hands should linger, how close they should push. No one else should ever know Niall like this. Harry took all that he could of him in and fell asleep lulled by the other’s warm presence.

When Harry awoke hours later, feeling disoriented and alone, a pretty, blue eyed boy sat next to him. He wasn’t Niall.

Harry’s drowsiness vanished. “Louis, what’s up? What are you doing here?”

“I’m not sure.” For a moment, those blue eyes, too dark, misted over and his face, too pointed, went slack. Then he shook his head and his usual impish expression returned. “Let’s go exploring, shall we?”

Harry shivered and crossed his arms tightly. “Where’s Niall?”

“Dunno. A daring quest indeed, to seek out Sir Niall the Green, should you accept.”

Harry thawed enough to gingerly take the hand held out to him. His head filling with fog, he allowed Louis to pull him to his feet and propel him through the door.

They didn’t find Niall that day, but what Harry discovered instead was the beginnings of an intense friendship that would demand the majority of his attention for the next two years of his life. Through the whirlwind of winning weekly rounds and ultimately losing and then the signing of their contract, it left him little time for anything else, even his three other bandmates. And if Harry sometimes looked past Louis to stare overmuch at a smile too wide and listened especially for a laugh too loud and woke reaching for a body not there, these moments passed like dreams, hazy and not to be remembered.

On a break between filming their first full-length music video, Harry unexpectedly caught Niall alone. It felt like years had passed since Harry had seen the Irish lad properly. Bright sunlight passed through the overcast clouds. Immediately, he dropped down beside Niall in the soft, beige sand, Harry’s shoulder dipping so that they touched. Niall watched the low, rolling waves with fixed concentration. The California sunshine barely warmed his wintry skin. Harry licked his lips and tasted salt.

“Niall,” Harry called. He suddenly needed the other boy to turn and acknowledge him.

Niall jerked and struck Harry with an intense blue gaze. Nothing gentle lurked there. Instead of warm Malibu waters, Niall’s eyes reflected the cold, harsh Atlantic. Foaming surf and crashing waves threatened to pull Harry under and away.

Harry refused to go. “Niall, c’mon.” Harry grabbed at his forearm, pale skin icy to the touch, and tugged. “Let’s get something to eat. You’re hungry, yeah?”

It took a moment, but the treacherous eddies that swirled just beneath the surface receded. Niall’s stomach rumbled and his round, boyish face creased into familiar and welcome laugh lines.

“I’m starvin’,” Niall announced like Harry had hoped for.

“Follow me and I shall present you a feast.” Harry led him away, his arm firmly around Niall’s waist. Keeping up a constant stream of chatter and poorly planned jokes with perplexing punch lines, Harry allowed Niall no opportunities to look back. He refused to let him be anything but the laughing, smiling boy he resembled.

Harry didn’t catch a glimpse of that strange, other Niall again until the other side of the country. In New York, gray, concrete-bound New York, with walls of screaming fans pressing in on all sides as they fought to move forward, Harry saw the wild light that rose up in Niall’s eyes, churning and helpless with nowhere to go.

Harry wrapped his body, his everything, around Niall.

“Breathe.”

“Smells like dust,” Niall choked out.

Harry pushed Niall’s flushed face into the hollow of his neck. “Now breathe.” Heated air, short and fast, blew across Harry’s pulse point.

“You’re alright. I’ve got you. Won’t let them hurt you. Won’t let you go.”

“Everything’s dead, Harry. All that’s left are the roaches.” That lilting voice, normally so youthful and lively, sounded as old and as weary as the mountains of Ireland.

“It’s not, Ni. I promise it’s not. There’s a park here, a big green space with grass and trees and real air and squirrels and shit. I’ll take you there, ok? We’ll sit all day out in the sun, just you and me. Feed the birds our crusts.” Harry wanted that almost more than Niall.

Harry continued murmuring into Niall’s ear, lips brushing against the delicate shell with each word. And Niall, in his weakness, was helpless to do anything but let Harry seep in and soothe his nerves and whisk him away.

Months later, Harry turned up at Niall’s hotel room in the middle of the night. Clenched knuckles rapped repeatedly at the wood.

“Harry, what’s the craic?” Niall stood in the thin sliver of the partially opened door.

“Niall...please.”

Niall let out a loud exhale, but stepped aside and allowed the door to swing all the way open. Harry wasted no time and darted into the room. Once safely across the threshold, he waited only long enough for the door to close again before he threw himself into Niall’s arms.

“What is it?” Niall held his taller body stiffly.

“Lou...he doesn’t want...he won’t even...” Harry wiped the evidence of his hurt on the soft material of Niall’s shirt.

Harry couldn’t see him move, but he felt the shift away and the cold, lonely space that opened up between them. The telltale scritch of a hand running through hair reached his ears. “The fans, yeah. They’re a bit much.”

Hearing those weak excuses parroted in Niall’s voice made Harry inexplicably furious. “He’s supposed to be my best friend!”

Niall patted him cautiously on the shoulder. “I know. I am sorry, Harry.” Though awkward and stilted, simple sincerity threaded through the words.

Harry’s anger deflated. Niall had not been the one to lie to him. He had never pretended or made promises that he hadn’t kept. He had never led him to hope.

All the fight and energy drained out of him. Harry slumped heavily and forced Niall to take his weight lest they both fall. “Can I stay with you?”

A long huff of a sigh, but then, “I suppose so. For now.”

Niall walked his boneless body over to the bed. They tumbled into it. Harry rolled on top before Niall could stop him.

Niall couldn't contain his fascination. A strong hand splayed wide against Harry’s thudding chest. “Your heart-”

“Is bruised,” Harry interrupted. He rested his forehead on Niall’s collarbone. Worming a hand underneath their bodies, Harry squeezed insistently at Niall’s middle. Tentative arms rose to follow suit and settled lightly around Harry. “But it’s getting better.”

After that, Harry stayed close to Niall as much as he was allowed, which by playing up his demeanour of the pathetic and betrayed, was more than previous. In pictures, at interviews, during the long, quiet stretches on the tour bus or in impersonal hotel suites, Harry kept Niall between him and Louis. The gulf between once close friends widened to near insurmountable lengths, but with Niall on his side of the divide, Harry could not muster up much desire to bridge the distance.

Now, when Niall wilted in the oppressive heat of Sydney, or sickened in the smog of Beijing, Harry stood ready in position to do something about it. The yearning for home, for green, rolling hills however, that spread like a blight on Niall’s shining spirit, Harry felt helpless in the face of. No amount of cuddling or midnight food runs could return the vitality to ashen cheeks or revive a caged and waning heart.

“Three albums in three years. Practically non-stop touring in support of them. How do you guys keep going and with those cheeky smiles in place?” the congenial, affected television presenter asked.

“Let me tell you, I’m grateful to have these four lads at my side. Without them I would not be here.” Spoken with a wink to distract from dulled blue eyes. Ice wound its way through Harry’s veins.

In the dark, in desperation, Harry did what he had never dared to before and smashed hungry lips together. Teeth scraping, he bit and clawed and licked into Niall’s mouth. He demanded a response and greedily swallowing it down. Fingers fumbled at the snap of Niall’s jeans.

“Harry,” Niall said around panting breaths. “Don’t. Your heart.”

Harry tangled their arms and legs together and thrust everything in between into intimate alignment. The slip slide of heated bodies dragged a low moan out from bruised lips. He held Niall’s face cradled in his large hands.

“Let me…please.” It seemed Harry was always begging for something from Niall, but he would get down on his knees if he had to. And he did.

Stripped of denim, only the thin protection of Niall’s pants separated them. Harry pressed his face into the sensitive crease between hip and groin and reveled in the uncontrollable twitch of muscle. Moving lower, he mouthed at the growing bulge, interspersing kisses with cooling puffs of air on the burning, bound flesh. The hardening length strained up to meet him, an honest, unconcealed response. Harry licked lightly at the damp, cloth covered head with the flat of his tongue.

“Harry!” A keening wail.

“What?” Harry asked lowly, coaxing out an answer with a maddeningly slow pace.

“I want.”

“What do you want?” Harry tugged at the tip with the barest hint of teeth.

“You.” The answer tore free from Niall’s throat. “I want you.”

“Good,” Harry said and ripped away the last barrier. He swallowed Niall to the root. Thin lips stretched wide and cheeks hollowed with the force of his suction.

The scent of their arousal, mixed with the musk heavy on his tongue, went straight to Harry’s head. He purred low in his throat, wringing more sweet whimpers from between clenched teeth. Green eyes looked up to watch the slow bloom of blood spread across Niall’s pale skin as the hot flash of desire grew and displaced all else.

Withdrawing, Harry laved at the prominent vein on the underside of Niall’s cock, and after he exulted in those choking gasps for a moment, moved to suckle at the head. The point of his tongue slid into and flicked at the weeping slit.

“Harry, I need..." Shaking his head, Niall clamped his lips shut.

“What do you need?”

Niall refused to answer.

Harry pulled back completely. “You need this. You need _me_. Say it.”

Niall said nothing.

“You’re mine. You belong with me.” Harsh, grasping tugs punctuated the statements followed by a shove at slim hips. “I’ll make you feel it.”

They fell into Niall's soft bed. Fingers tweaking and stroking, Harry searched out all of Niall’s hidden spots. He left no part of him untouched. Every bite and bruise staked a claim. Harry gave it all back and more, pouring his soul into Niall through the scratch of fingernails and ravenous thrusts and consuming mouths until they overflowed. They fell exhausted into sleep, bodies intertwined and sated for the moment.

Harry awoke alone. Blinking blearily, he flung out an arm and found only the smooth, white sheets of his own bed and the untouched second pillow beside him. His duffel sat crooked on the chair in the corner of his room where he had tossed it before running off to Niall’s.

A knock on the door sounded and Harry stumbled naked to answer it, skin somehow scrubbed pink and tender and bare of all remnants of Niall. Loss weighed down his steps.

Zayn stood on the other side. Nonplussed, Harry stared into thickly lashed, unfocused brown eyes. He had expected Liam to be first.

“Morning Harry,” Zayn greeted him around a loud yawn. He scratched at his belly and tilted his head like he was searching for a surface to lay it down on. “I need to talk to you.” It came out like a question.

Harry slammed the door shut in his face.

Harry didn’t even bother to get up when Liam knocked and called through the door. At the very least he hadn't dared to send Louis after him again. Harry burrowed under blankets and buried his head until eventually the other gave up. Then he went to find Niall.

With teeth, tongue, and touch, Harry reminded Niall where they both belonged. A string of purpling bruises, given and received and constantly refreshed, ensured that neither would forget. When Niall would drift, after autograph signings, in the middle of rehearsal, wherever they happened to be, Harry reeled him in. Constant vigilance and copious amounts of raw pleasure kept Niall tethered to his side. And for a time it was enough. Until the day it wasn’t.

“I can’t stay here anymore.” Face drawn and waxy, even Niall’s blonde hair looked gray in the fading light of the evening.

This time, Harry was the one who tried to flee, but an inexorable grip kept him in place. Blue eyes pierced and pinned him.

“You pledged once to give me anything I asked for.”

“No! Please don’t.” Harry shook his head, tears welling up and leaking from eyes the green of new leaves. Nameless dread turned his insides to lead.

"Through you, I've experienced a world I never imagined existed. I've had dreams, lost them, and found them again. The human heart is a beautiful, resilient thing."

“Niall, I don’t want this. Don't leave me alone.” Harry fell to his knees on the carpet.

Niall held his face in his callused hands, thumbs rubbing gently along the curve of his cheeks. “I have to. You won’t even know that you feel better. Promise.”

Painful pressure filled Harry’s head. Pure light blinded him. Niall methodically stripped Harry of memory, of everything that was good and precious. Just as the presence began to withdraw, Harry fought like a wild thing, scrabbling and clawing and desperate to hold onto any trace. At the very last, Harry shoved back instead, and then it all disappeared. The light extinguished and only darkness remained.

Harry awoke alone. Stretched out on his back, an overwhelming urge to vomit hit him though he felt completely empty inside. The first broken promise, though Harry could no longer remember it to feel the sting of grief and betrayal. He felt nothing.

Harry didn’t move from his prone position on the bed until Liam came barreling in to collect him.

“Get up. Get up!”A shirt and a pair of trousers smacked Harry in the face. “We have to be out of here in twenty minutes. There’s no time for you to be Zayn today! Where’s your head at, Harry?”

Harry usually had no problems waking up. He had never been a morning person before the band, but dragging himself up and out from under warm covers became far easier when he got to steal under someone else’s and wake-

Zayn? No, that wasn’t right. He had never woken Zayn in that careful, close manner. Nor did Liam or Louis require his assistance most mornings. A throbbing ache replaced the blank spot in his brain. The ground beneath him unsteady, Harry stumbled into the bathroom.

They piled into the van, Louis in the passenger seat, Liam and Zayn in the middle row, and Harry alone in the back. Harry ran a hand over the empty seat beside him, feeling strangely unbalanced. He remained silent the entire way to the studio.

Louis walked into their dressing room juggling a paper bag and two carton trays full of hot coffee. “Special delivery for you sluggards.”

Zayn grunted from where he lay sprawled out on the leather couch. Liam kicked at him before standing to help Louis distribute their breakfast. Harry stared at Louis’ hands, at the identical paper cups that required two trays with four slots each in order to be carried. One sugar went to Liam, one cream to Louis, one cream and two sugars to Zayn, and black to Harry. A single, lonely cup remained in one tray. Louis held it up, bemused.

Paul, their tour manager and general mother hen, poked his head in to deliver his usual pre-appearance admonishments. Louis cut him off by pushing the coffee under his nose. Harry wanted to jump up and snatch it away, but could not think of a plausible reason why. A vein at his temple pulsed fiercely.

“Got you something.”

Paul eyed Louis and the cup suspiciously before he picked it up and took a tentative sip. He spluttered. “Are you trying to rot my teeth or what?” Making faces, he abandoned the too sweet coffee on the counter, but did help himself to the extra muffin left in the paper bag. Harry fought the urge to pick the crumbs from his mouth.

Their interview that day was awkward and stilted, full of none of the warm wit and easy banter that was the group’s trademark. Either silence greeted the host’s inquires, each of them expecting a loud exclamation or a cackling laugh to fill in the spaces, or else they all rushed in at once, tripping over one another without direction.

Their concert that night was even worse. The four of them missed cues that they had hit a thousand times before and messed up choreography that they should have been able to do in their sleep. It felt like a waking nightmare when Liam turned to initiate a dance with a non-existent partner, or Zayn stumbled after throwing his arm around nothing, or Louis stuttered into his solo with no one beside him to flutter his eyelashes at. As for Harry, he made more mistakes than the rest of the boys combined and spent the majority of the concert wandering the stage lost and disoriented.

Naturally, they received an earful the likes that they had never heard before, and they could no more defend themselves than they could understand what was wrong, what boy shaped piece was missing. In time, they got better. They adjusted their positioning without questioning why four felt so lopsided and relearned the steps minus one. Everyone, but Harry.

Relegated to the back row and off to the side, Harry watched the rest of them move on while he stood in place, resentment and betrayal he couldn't understand churning inside him and curdling everything he had once loved. He stopped smiling those wide, dimpled smiles and his signature curls drooped lank and limp with disinterest. He didn’t eat anymore without Liam’s prodding, Louis’ nagging, or Zayn’s troubled eyes watching.

Though the other three had their own stable, domestic relationships to occupy them, they tried to entice Harry to return to normality with nights out on the town. They paraded one attractive person after the other in front of him in hopes of catching his flagging attention. The very thought of touching someone else made Harry want to retch the little bit of food he had forced down.

“How about her? She's well fit.” Liam pointed at a striking brunette with mile long legs. She got barely a shrug out of Harry. Far more interesting were the drinks he steadily slammed back. The empty glasses lined the length of the table.

“Harry, this is Diana.” Zayn had to snap his fingers in front of Harry’s face to get him to focus on something besides the wonderful numbness that invaded his body. Diana walked away in a snit.

Louis stopped in the middle of hawking Vanessa of the large breasts to him when Harry leapt out of his seat, a flash of gold catching the corner of his vision. He chased it down into the middle of the crowd, pulse pounding in his mouth as he grabbed hold of a wiry arm. The golden head turned and hazel eyes met his, the other boy’s response lost in the roar of blood that filled Harry’s ears. Dropping his arm as if scalded, Harry turned and ran.

Alone on the tour bus, in the dark of his bunk, the emptiness weighed heavy and suffocating. A yawning chasm stretched before him that Harry could see no end to. Shaking fingers searched under the thin mattress where it wedged tight against the wall and pulled out a small plastic baggie.

He choked the first pill down to forget. The ones after that in the days that followed, he swallowed eagerly once Harry realized that they helped him _remember._ The swirl of chemicals uncovered the knowledge that days hadn’t always stretched out dull and colourless and nights hadn’t always dragged and drained away his dwindling reserves. Beyond the darkness that shaded his days, Harry had known once what it felt like to hold and to be held, to be warmed by something bright and achingly beautiful and _his_.

Time distilled to a blissed out haze of half memory. Harry drifted immune to Zayn’s soft panic, Louis’ incessant cries, and Liam’s increasingly anxious pleas. His tall, gangly form grew skeletal, skin sinking against bone to reflect the hollowness inside.

Another night in another city, one day closer to the end, Harry lay on his back on another empty bed in another muted hotel room. He stared up at nothing.

A light voice spoke out of the dark. “Not really what I had in mind for you, ya stubborn dope.”

For the first time in a long time, Harry’s interest perked. “You don’t get to decide that.” What _that_ was exactly, Harry didn’t know, but nonetheless he knew it to be true.

“You’re killing yourself Harry.”

Harry did not for one moment wonder how the voice knew his name or how he knew the voice. He had always known that voice, would know it anywhere.

“Then save me,” he whispered.

The other pulled Harry into a sitting position by his thin, brittle wrists. Long, careful fingers let go and Harry almost whimpered, but the touch returned quickly to his rapidly heating skin. Harry devoured the sight of sunshine yellow hair and fell into the depth of blue eyes.

One steadying hand splayed wide against Harry’s still, exposed chest. The other opened, palm facing the sky. “Your heart.”

He held out in his hand a pale, fluttering thing. Harry knew that if he took it back, if this boy left it behind, that Harry would never see him again, and the small, fragile light, though returned to Harry’s chest to resume its place in the empty cavity, would wither and die.

“Is yours.” Harry pushed back with everything in him, just like he had the night he had been left all alone.

“I can’t stay.”

“Then I can’t either.”

“My Harry,” the boy said and those three syllables contained everything Harry had ever wanted.

“Where I go, will you follow?”

“Anywhere. Always.”

The hand holding his heart closed tight. Their light went out.

Liam, Zayn, and Louis, poor souls, were forced to adjust yet again. Grown accustomed to the ghosts that lingered, the slivers that needled, they avoided the shadows and took their missteps in stride. Time conquered the rest. And if once a day, every hundred thousand heartbeats, theirs skipped two, they hardly ever noticed or thought to ask why. Such were the mysteries of the heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta'd because I'm a lone wolf. I know where I was going with this, but not quite sure if I actually arrived. So yeah, I'm done. Everyone else write more Narry.


End file.
